Don't Stick in the Kitchen
One thing that makes baking easier these days is cookware coated with Teflon®. Teflon® is so reluctant to hold onto things that muffins nearly jump out of the pan when touched.
The nonstick coating on pans is called polytetrafluoroethylene - PTFE for short. It has about the same friction rating as ice. Since it doesn’t attract other substances, even toffee can come out of a pan without leaving a mess.
Besides being slippery, PTFE is stable over a wide temperature range, it doesn’t conduct electricity, and it resists attack by almost all chemicals. Because it’s chemically inert, it doesn’t taint food. It’s also used to make heart valves, because it doesn’t promote clots or cause infection.
Teflon® is a trade name given by the DuPont Company, which accidentally discovered it in 1938. However, it wasn’t until the 1950's that a French engineer used it to make nonstick pans.
Teflon® is made as a powdery resin using high pressure and catalysts. Because it doesn’t melt properly, it’s mixed with a binder and moulded at high temperature under great pressure. Under these conditions, the particles fuse together to form a solid block. To make a nonstick frying pan, PTFE powder is mixed with water, sprayed onto the pan, and then baked.
So next time you flip your pancake, don’t use a metal utensil, because although Teflon® is tough, you can easily scratch off the coating. [Teflon® is a registered trademark of DuPont.]
It just seems to be the nature of some foods to stick to metal cookware, leaving us with a difficult cleanup job. Stick-free coatings function by coming between the food and metal.
There is a principle here that can be applied to other situations. Socially for example, an intermediary can often help us out of “sticky situations” when there is a problem. In some cultures, all important negotiations are handled through intermediaries. These may be nothing more than a mutual friend of the two parties. Sometimes they are gifted individuals in the community whose personal disinterest allows for honest, if indirect communication. There are also some professionally- trained, highly-skilled negotiators. We find these more in our western corporate culture.
Sometimes, especially if we are likely to overreact emotionally, it’s a good idea to let a third party help us sort out relational problems. We may feel that we are surrendering some control in the situation, but that may help the other party enter into the resolution process more enthusiastically.
Our most important relationship is the one we have with God. “What!” you say, “I don’t have a relationship with God.” If that is your sense of things, then it is safe to assume that your relationship with God needs some serious work.
If you accept the idea that God is the designer and creator of both material and non-material reality, you need to think about your place within that reality. The complexity of creation shows the purposefulness of God. If He is purposeful, then there is a purpose for your life. You are not just an absurd little insignificant “accident.” Many of us try to live autonomously - as if we were the only ones we needed to consider.
If God is who He claims to be, there is a relationship that needs to be developed. But you don’t need to rush out and find an independent negotiator to help you. God has already provided one.
David Humphreys and Ron Hughes
© August 2004
